Silence
by thebookhobbit
Summary: Fic number 324 on the subject of L's bells, with a twist of Silence Of The Lambs. Pre-LABB mostly, but with one spoiler for episode 25, of course.


_"Good-bye, Clarice. Will you let me know if ever the lambs stop screaming?"  
"Yes."  
Pembry was taking her arm. It was go or fight him.  
"Yes", she said. "I'll tell you."  
"Promise?"  
"Yes." -Exchange between Dr. Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling from Silence Of The Lambs by Thomas Harris._

There are bells ringing, L notes as he thoughtfully peruses the pages of a worn manuscript with the image of a butterfly on the cover. Usually, he finds himself relating more to Hannibal Lecter, whose great brain was his strength and whose great ego was his downfall. L is not quite so certain of himself as Hannibal was, and L does not eat his victims(criminals themselves; and in that way not necessarily different from the psychiatrist's victims, for often both are depraved, in need of psychological help, although L does not provide it while Lecter does), but there is a certain similarity. He knows, just knows, that one day his methods will be the death of him. He cannot simply take any means necessary to get rid of a criminal; they must be defeated gracefully, almost nobly. The wrong choice of words, perhaps, because his motives are not noble. It' s a matter of pride rather than honour, he suspects, when he bothers to look that deep inside himself, when he's not afraid of the darkness he senses rising, when he doesn't shrinking from searching that chasm for fear of finding something twisted and menacing crouching there

_Dr. Lecter likes to have his fun._

L likes to have his fun, too. Simply killing the person he suspects, even if the evidence is solid, is not the least bit fun. Granted, solving the case is intriguing and the best part, but he has to gloat. And beyond that, he has to make them tell, get into their minds, find out how and why and when and where. What caused the madness to set in. He sometimes get paranoid about it, as he might about a disease, thinking the symptoms are descending and that written on his forehead in bright red letters is "psycho", there for the world to see if they brushed the inky hair from his forehead. He occasionally avoids combing his hair, afraid of what he'll find, then tells himself this is childish and shakes his head(not that he bothers to mess with it much, anyway).

He hides in the shadows, the world's three greatest detective and for all that, still nobody. Somehow hollow, would anyone miss him if he was gone? L would be taken over by one of his successors, perhaps B or Near and Mello. Probably the latter, he decides, for in B even more than in himself he can see those red letters, gleaming out of the haunting red eyes that, fortunately attached to a body, crept into his room once upon a time to watch and laugh and hate with wild-eyed frenzy. He puts these things out of his mind often, for he does not like to think of the disturbed B taking his place, or of the children, still so innocent, eyes filled with knowledge heartbreakingly premature, cloaking themselves in darkness and stepping into his place. These thoughts are, again, illogical, and he strives to put them out of his mind, but he can never quite forget. Lambs. Lambs to the slaughter.

Bells ring for weddings, bells ring for funerals. It is not Sunday; which of the two is commencing? New life, two people joined. A life gone, murdered maybe, the joy and soul stolen away, perhaps by one of the people he has caught but perhaps because of him.

Ridiculous. It is self-centered to think he had anything to do with them, yet the image persists. Lifeless body in a casket, loved ones wailing, it's raining so hard he can't see go inside but he's frozen...

_"Do you think if you caught Buffalo Bill yourself and if you made Catherine all right, you could make the lambs stop screaming, do you think they'd be all right too and you wouldn't wake up again in the dark and hear the lambs screaming?"  
_  
At this moment, however, L feels, absurdly, somewhat more like Clarice, waking up "in the iron darkness" to the screaming of the lambs, wishing, eyes wide in terror, that they would be silenced, doing anything to make them stop, talking to murders and trying to single-handedly solve the problems of the world. He wonders if perhaps he feels guilty, but he is not sure. Once again, he refuses to dig, does not want to find out. He does not seek the weakness in himself any more than he seeks the evil. So he shakes his head and moves on with whatever he's doing until he goes outside for some fresh air and possibly to see about finding Watari, who is out practicing his shooting, to get him something to eat, and he get soaked to the bone because it's raining and there are bells.

It is five years before he braves another downpour and hears the bells again someplace other than his bedroom when he tries, desperately and unsuccessfully, to lure himself to sleep.

He knows he's Clarice now, for he has given his trust to a murderer knowing that murderer will betray him. He goes out to hear the bells this rainy November day because he knows for certain that it will the the last time.

_"Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee." _

_

* * *

_Okay, so that came out of nowhere. And it is bloody weird, but I like it anyway. I mean, the whole bells issue has been investigated twenty-thousand times, so that's not all that original, but I haven't stumbled upon much dealing with Hannibal and Clarice and Death Note. Or maybe that's because it doesn't make much sense. -shrug-  
All quotes are from Silence Of The Lambs, except the last, which is I think a bit from a John Donne poem? It's used a lot for this sort of fic. Makes me want to write a story inspired by "Death, Be Not Proud". It could actually be quite an interesting concept, if you think of it Light as Death. "And Death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die" and all. /rant  
Man, it's been way too long since I wrote any fanfiction. And haha, look! It's pretty long for me, too! Alas, though, my MS word puked so I had to use wordpad which doesn't have a fecking spellcheck. And it screws with my formatting, so let me know if anything looks off.  
So. Reviews, perhaps? Concrit is appreciated, but anything is taken with much gratitude. _  
_


End file.
